Lee Brian Schrager Cooks Up a New Book

by eric newill

This February marks the 10th anniversary of Miami’s premier culinary spectacular, and to celebrate, creator Lee Brian Schrager has amassed the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival Cookbook (Clarkson Potter; $35). A comprehensive assemblage of recipes from the nation’s greatest chefs, the book features stories and photos documenting the event’s most memorable occasions.

Sales of the flashback-filled scrapbook benefit FIU’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. Here, Schrager—who also launched the extremely successful Food Network New York City Wine & Food Festival and has plans for LA by 2013—serves up the dish.

OCEAN DRIVE: How would you describe your book?
LEE BRIAN SCHRAGER: If People magazine was ever to do a cookbook, they would probably do what I did: behind-the-scenes stories, photos and recipes. It’s also an armchair book, in that if you’ve not been to the festival, it does a good job of showing you what it’s about and how it got started and where we are 10 years later.